cookbook

It’s not that
they don’t under- stand the awfulness of war
and the evils of terrorization (they were the victims of
chemical attack from Saddam Hussein.) They face it and
yet they also welcome the war displaced.
Even in early June 2014 in Suli alone, they hosted some quarter
million refugees from the Iraq war. Since then that number has burgeoned
to estimates of over a million refugees displaced from Syria
and regions within Iraq.
My final evening in Suli we drove past the new fast food joints, mini
golfs and amusement parks, hotels, office buildings and tracts of
homes up into the mountains. We were hardly alone, as throngs of
picnickers (a family favorite past time especially on Friday afternoons
after Mosque services) ascended alongside us. High up
we stopped at a lookover. Taking in the growing city below,
I gazed across the horizon at the setting sun, Iran behind me,
Baghdad southeast and murderous madmen ascending from the
northeast.
My week had shown me a fiercely strong people who looked to the
future not just with respect for the growing adversity (which the
months have shown to be quite real), but with resolve to build a
beautiful destiny come what may.
Once back in the US, I followed with concern the movements of ISIL, western,
Asian and mid-eastern governments, Syria—the whole boiling pot. I
sadly heard my fellow citizens, neighbors and Chris- tians ridiculing and
spewing hatred towards the refugees and inhabitants of the Middle East.
It would be easy to dismiss them as simply not being enlightened as
I (now) was. They knew what media and leaders said.
Who could better show the commonality of the peo-